Weather or Not You Sell Your Plants

Weather has a big impact on many item sales in the economy. In fact the US GDP is also impacted by factors such as temperature, precipitation, and sunlight.  But do they impact floriculture sales?   In a study published in HortScience  (Vol 47 (1): 71-73), authors Bridget Behe, Kristin Getter, and Chengyan Yue looked at horticultural sales from 42 retail garden centers in the US Midwest over 3 years and how they are influenced by different factors such as weather, month, and day of the week on spring herbaceous plant sales.  Some of their findings were that precipitation had no effect on sales. Increasing units of sunshine lowered sales by 1%. Lower minimum air temperature reduced sales, and higher maximum air temperature increased sales. The highest amount of sales occurred on Saturday. They also found that day of the week and month had a greater impact on sales than did any weather parameter.  I would speculate that some of these parameters may hold true in the Florida market, but I'm not sure that they all hold true.  I’ll let you read the abstract of the article for yourself and let me know what you think.  http://hortsci.ashspublications.org/content/47/1/71.abstract